New draft health-care regs: If you like your plan, you can’t necessarily keep your plan

posted at 6:48 pm on June 11, 2010 by Allahpundit

I vaguely recall hearing that we would be able to keep our plans if we liked them, but then I also vaguely recall hearing that Iran wouldn’t be allowed to build nuclear weapons, that this would be the most transparent administration ever, that the deficit is a very serious problem, etc etc.

[A]n early draft of an administration regulation estimates that many employers will be forced to make changes to their health plans under the new law. In just three years, a majority of workers — 51 percent — will be in plans subject to new federal requirements, according to midrange projections in the draft.

Republicans said Obama broke his promise. Employer groups were divided…

“What we are getting here is a clear indication that most plans will have to change,” said James Gelfand, health policy director for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “From an employer’s point of view that’s a bad thing. These changes, whether or not they’re good for consumers, are most certainly accompanied by a cost.”…

An administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the rules are still being written, said the final version will uphold Obama’s promise, accommodating employers’ desire for flexibility while protecting consumers from runaway costs.

Their strategy for letting you keep your plan if you like your plan is to include a “grandfather clause” that would exempt current plans from consumer protection requirements so long as copayments and deductibles are below certain limits. The problem: If your insurer alters the terms of the plan in the normal course of business and those limits are crossed, it’s no longer a grandfathered plan and the new consumer-protection benefits suddenly become mandatory — which means an exciting new monthly premium when your insurer inevitably passes the costs of those benefits on. But then, we already knew that this Obama promise was bogus. Remember Scott Gottlieb’s piece in the Journal last month on how insurers would soon run out of options in managing new costs imposed on them by regulations, with the inevitable result being collapse and consolidation? Massachusetts’s problem is our problem now.

For your companion reading, enjoy Jeffrey Anderson’s rundown of all the wonderful things we’ve learned about O-Care since it passed, just as Pelosi promised that we would. His post is two weeks old and already outdated. Such is the pace of “Change.” From last August, here’s official White House video of Linda Douglass — formerly of ABC, currently of Atlantic media — responding to the evil conservative disinformation campaign which claimed, contra The One, that you might not be able to keep your plan if you like it. Wingnuts.

“What we are getting here is a clear indication that most plans will have to change,” said James Gelfand, health policy director for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “From an employer’s point of view that’s a bad thing. These changes, whether or not they’re good for consumers, are most certainly accompanied by a cost.”…

If your insurer alters the terms of the plan in the normal course of business and those limits are crossed, it’s no longer a grandfathered plan

So, it may be true that if you like your plan, you may keep it…..your plan, however, may not keep you…..

Why on earth would the important federal government want to let stupid ‘civilians’ make big decisions like what kind of healthcare they have and what they spend their money on? C’mon, people, be serious! And stop looking at Drudge, too, while you’re at it!

All snarking aside, single payer is what they want, and the ends always justify the means. They’re counting on the public’s notoriously short memory. The other day I saw an elderly couple driving a Subaru hatchback and taped to the back window was a hand-printed sign that said “We’ll remember in November.” God, I hope so.

And yet, Obama, and the other liberal liars still get some approval in their ratings. How can this be? Are there actually dimwits out there that like being lied to?

capejasmine on June 11, 2010 at 7:00 PM

Yes, yes there are! As the idiot resident liberal by me says, “Obama has not lied, he just changes his mind.” This after all those years screaming about Bush lying and the deficit. It is amazing how they can twist their own logic up to make all of this ok now.

The mere fact that he kept telling us that we could keep our plans indicated a problem, because it was not a statement about our rights but rather permission from on high–permission subject to change as circumstances change. The head of our executive branch shouldn’t have to tell us that we can keep our current health care plans and doctors; that’s not his business. When he makes it his business, his reassurances about our rights are merely contingent. It’s not even about lying; it’s about the technocrat’s view of freedom as subject to change in accordance with his schemes.

I guess there’s going to be some pain required in order to wake up whatever percentage of fools that aren’t radical marxists, looters, or moochers, and are still unaware of how quickly our freedoms and money are being stolen.

Whatever it may take, count on the marxists in the administration to keep pushing the envelope until November.

I’m amazed his approval ratings are still in the forties, despite a criminally complicit MFM.

And yet, Obama, and the other liberal liars still get some approval in their ratings. How can this be? Are there actually dimwits out there that like being lied to?

capejasmine on June 11, 2010 at 7:00 PM

Hannity had a nursing student (I think, wasn’t listening all that closely…he wished her luck on that at the end so I guess that’s what she was) on today who didn’t know who Karl Marx was (though she thought his ideas sounded pretty good), and didn’t know who the VP was either.

While I agree about Obama, the entire Democrat party is the problem here. Just look at the vote yesterday on stopping the EPA from regulating carbon. The entire party needs to go and sooner rather than later.

An administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the rules are still being written, said the final version will uphold Obama’s promise, accommodating employers’ desire for flexibility while protecting consumers from runaway costs.

What jumps out at me is the part I bolded in the quote: they already passed it and they still haven’t finished writing it! How does that even work?

Of course he lied. Obummer belongs to the holy church of lies (based out of the Inferno–the frozen lake part where old Scratch consumes the souls) . . . . Apparently Obummer tastes too bad even for the Devil.